Timeline for Could the President, Senate, and a foreign country circumvent the House to pass a law?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 18, 2022 at 3:03 | comment | added | deep64blue | "So, the President and a two-thirds majority of the Senate, in cooperation with a foreign country, by treaty, can accomplish legislative ends with which the House would not agree." As long as it doesn't require any money to be spent anywhere ... | |
| Jun 18, 2022 at 1:36 | comment | added | Andy | @tbrookside Do you suppose that this was what Gödel's Loophole was all about? | |
| Jun 17, 2022 at 13:25 | comment | added | T.E.D. | @A.Rex - If there's such a thing as an exception proving a rule, it would likely be that. Senators were not directly elected back then, so it really was a different system. I don't believe this situation has happened in the modern era (which means since the end of the Civil War, or since the end of WWII, depending on who you ask). | |
| Jun 17, 2022 at 1:35 | vote | accept | Someone | ||
| Jun 17, 2022 at 1:32 | comment | added | ohwilleke | @Corrodias There are two largely separate constitutional law questions. One whether there is an alternative process to the House majority + Senate majority + President process for making a self-executing law with domestic effect. It is a rules about the law making process question. The other is a question about the relatively priority of legal authority coming into being by different means vis-a-vis each other (i.e. does the constitution override treaties or only ordinary domestic statutes and state laws). The case law and analysis are completely separate. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 23:05 | comment | added | Corrodias | @tbrookside That, "The President and Senate have to be empowered to make peace" seems to be a statement of your opinion. Do you have something legal to support it? I do find this discussion relevant to the question and answer, though, as the constitution is part of law. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 20:55 | comment | added | tbrookside | We have had the luxury of pretending otherwise due to our two and a half century run of good luck in foreign affairs. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 20:55 | comment | added | tbrookside | @ohwilleke I don't think Justice Black's statement on this matter would hold up against any true practical test. If the US lost a war, but the polity was not completely destroyed, and the victor imposed a treaty that, say, required New Hampshire and Vermont to be combined into one state, and the Senate approved it - that treaty would withstand judicial scrutiny, regardless of what Article IV, Section 3 says. The President and Senate have to be empowered to make peace, even a bad peace, when the situation warrants it. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 20:19 | comment | added | ohwilleke | @tbrookside Not so. The U.S. Constitution is superior to both treaties and domestic laws and some treaty provisions have been stricken on the basis. It is really another question so I won't cite chapter and verse in a comment to this answer. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 18:38 | comment | added | tbrookside | I would go even farther than this answer and assert that if the President signs, and the Senate approves, a treaty abolishing the Bill of Rights, that would be constitutionally effective, under Article VI. The treaty power is effectively limitless under the supremacy clause - as it would have to be, in a situation where the US (for example) lost a war and had to make territorial or governmental concessions to the victor. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 16:49 | comment | added | Davislor | @ohwilleke What I think it would actually take is: a more-urban party wins a lot of state houses in a redistricting year, and gerrymanders itself into an advantage in redistricting. This does not, however, help it in the Senate. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 16:44 | comment | added | ohwilleke | @Davislor You would think that is theoretically possible, but the process of admitting new states has left the two bodies not perfectly correlated, but very strongly so. The direct election of Senators, the evolution of the party system, and the lines of the states that got admitted, have really changed was might have bee possible on a blank slate or might have happened very early one in the history of the USA. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 16:11 | comment | added | Davislor | Recall, the Senate massively overrepresents smaller states, whereas state legislatures can gerrymander the House as much as they want. That makes it much more possible that a faction would hold a supermajority in the Senate, but only a minority in the House. | |
| Jun 16, 2022 at 13:52 | comment | added | A. Rex | At the beginning of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_United_States_Congress the Senate was two-thirds "Federalist"s while the House was majority Democratic-Republican. One of the primary issues separating/defining the parties (resulting in the "First Party System") was literally the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Treaty which was supported by the president and ratified by the Senate. (Although the House did eventually vote to fund the Treaty, the vote was close and a key supporter was stabbed as a result.) | |
| Jun 15, 2022 at 20:43 | history | edited | ohwilleke | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 476 characters in body
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| Jun 15, 2022 at 20:35 | history | answered | ohwilleke | CC BY-SA 4.0 |